Lighthearted and fun but suffers from having one awful character

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Juliet Takes a Breath had the potential to be one of my favorites for this year because of its huge focus on feminism and the serious yet fun way it was approached in this book, but it ultimately fell short.

I loved Juliet! I loved her journey of self-discovery and her little love story with Kira the librarian. What I hated was the addition of Harlowe, author of the popular feminist book Raging Flower, in the book.

Every time she appeared in a scene, you were almost guaranteed that Harlowe would say or do something that made her look even more like a hippie or that showed how little to no regard she had for anyone else.

As a white woman, Harlowe acted like she knew what she was talking about, but she really didn’t. After what she did to Juliet, Harlowe never really took responsibility for it, and I was so glad when Juliet called her out on that.

Because Harlowe was so important to this book’s plot and Juliet’s internship, she appeared in many scenes. Most of them I didn’t enjoy reading.

One thing that I did enjoy about this book was how author Gabby Rivera brought awareness to some stereotypes, which I could relate to.

Juliet Takes a Breath overall had a strong message for feminism, but this message was seriously weakened by the character of Harlowe.